Abyss Unabated
by Dominique Sotto
Summary: The Elven ship “Kestrel” en route to Evermeet is accosted by sahuagin. Some of the elves become prisoners in an underwater city.
1. Prologue

Prologue

The water was still, a mirror for the vane sky. The "Kestrel's" silvery sails, the pride of Captain Jalor, hung worthless. For once, a leather cord kept Keth'sim's dark hair bound in a tail at the nape of his neck. Not one moisture-curled strand danced in the salty breeze. Which concluded the list of the nicer things on that day.

The elven caravel "Kestrel" took a heavy beating from a terrifying storm not a ten-day ago. Idly, Keth'sim remembered the wild ride when the sea turned rabid on them. Tired of being sick, he had left the confines of the hull wishing only to die outside, not in a crowded cabin. The green and black waves rose frightfully high, and crashed down on the "Kestrel"'s quarter deck he had crawled onto, rolling over it and washing away everything in their path into the sea. The drenched sailors had not bothered to hide their smirks, when they had yelled to the alarmed commander of Wisperbrook guards, that the Sea of Swords had 'ne'er been kind'. Keth'sim had tried to look unperturbed just then, even with his stomach heaving and him clinging to the lines for his dear life among the havoc.

Prior to escorting Whisperbrook family on their journey to Evermeet, Keth'sim had been wise enough to have kept his feet firmly planted on dry soil for the past three-hundred twenty seven years of his life. However, it never entered his mind to leave the ship and stay behind after the storm had passed, and the "Kesterl" sheltered in an estuary of an unnamed river, one of many that cut their way through the Sword Coast to join the Sea of Swords, with its crew attending to recutting and sewing the new sails, sealing the hatches, some mysterious woodwork near the stern castle and running around with ropes and ropes and ropes. They said: "Pull!" and he heaved with all his might, and held what had to be held, and worked forms with any of his men he saw idle.

Scrutinizing the blue expanse, Keth'sim missed the days of reprieve from the sea-going, if not from the sea-going folk. Keth'sim Dwin'anea considered himself a brave man - and in truth, he could not be anything but brave ever since the Moonblade was unexpectedly passed down to him by a twice-removed uncle; the sentient sword would turn on its owner, should he prove a coward. However, the mariners fatalistic attitude unnerved him: they weathered the storms and the quiet and went on after saying a prayer for those lost at sea and mending things as best as he could. A prayer to Umberlee, the Bitch Queen, and the Seldarine knew, it was not a misnomer! Now, the ship was becalmed - an entirely different weather, but no less capricious or adverse to the traveling elves.

"All hands at arms!" came the shout from the crow-nest, just as idle Keth'sim noticed the strange rippling. Keth'sim threw a quick look around to make sure that Wisperbrook men were running to their positions; they were almost eager. "Evereska!" he screamed, and two dozen men responded; it was almost comforting.

Captain Jalor barked out a command, calling for the wizard. Erevain, he explained to Keth'sim, when the sails first turned limp, could sing to the wind, to the fair Aerdrie Faenya. The spell was rare, and not to be used but in the dire peril. When Keth'sim looked back at the water, the ripples turned into waves, though there were not a breath of wind, and the unmarred blue was cress-crossed by the dark shadows moving underneath the boiling surface. The captain was right. The hour of need has come.

"Sahuagin!" yelled the man at the crow nest, confirming Keth'sim's guess, and loosed an arrow. The shaft went under, the water around it frothing with blood and movement: the sahuagin now knew that they were expected. More arrows aimed with the elven frugal precision found the targets under water, but the school broke apart and was encircling the ship.

Then Erevain sang, sending the "Kestrel" forward, giving Keth'sim heart. The prow cut the attackers into two groups, battering the ones ahoy, like a siege ram.

The offered resistance seemed to only invigorate sahuagin: the school picked up the pace, shadowing the the "Kestrel", and the first of the slick, tall shapes showed itself above water, and threw a grappling hook. It dug into the wood, lodging there, supporting a line. Busy with the arrows, Keth'sim thought that he heard the ship moaning every time it was struck by the merciless iron claws - and berated himself for a fool. Diriel, his second in command, leaned overboard perilously, desperately hacking at a line. He cut it, sending two sahuagin tumbling back into the sea, but there were three more ropes growing from the ship's side, as if tying it down to the water.

The shark-headed men in glistening scales, climbed the ropes with purposeful agility and Keth'sim imagined that he saw hunger in their precise, speedy movements and snarls. He threw his bow aside, the moment the first of the sharkmen reached the deck and bared his sword. The blade in his hand, almost an extension of himself, calmed him. He watched the first opponent run towards him and swung, testing the man's strength. They should be tired, after all, having swum after the ship. The trident that met the Moonblade's strike wavered, but only slightly, and the sahuagin's arm rose readily to return the attack. No sign of strained breathing either. Not tired then. And there were three or four of the creatures to each of the ship's defenders, including the gentle passengers. He heard the Wisperbrook's youngest daughter crying, and gripped the sword's foot-long hilt with both hands. Less finesse, but he would be able to put more strength into a strike. The blue pommel jewel shined brighter than his eyes, descending on sahuagin's shoulder, as Keth'sim risked opening himself to land a blow from the high guard. Moonblade was only a sword; the victory in a righteous battle excited it no less than an honorable death of its owner. Sahuagin groaned and his fingers fell open, letting out the wickedly spiked net. But he punched the trident forward, ignoring the pain, and loathing to die without bleeding Keth'sin Dwin'anea, even if he knew that the blademaster with a wicked blade crowned with the blue gem was beyond his ability.

Keth'sim fought the sahuagin growing in front of him, at his sides, lurching at him from behind. He desperately needed a breather, so he threw a few cautious glances around. The "Kestrel"'s lovingly repaired white pine deck was blood-soaked underfoot. No matter where he turned, the elves lay, their fine chains punctured and ripped like so much woolen rugs by the sharp tridents, their arms or legs or necks caught in the nets. Above, the sail smoldered hit by a firespell. Keth'sim's realized that most of his two-score men were already dead or dieing. The "Kestrel" was doomed. Her mariners, her crew, and her passengers – none of them would see Evermeet.

Keth'sim refused to hear their high-pitched, painful cries: theirs was not an easy passing, but it was better than what he'd get: Keth'sim's own spirit would be locked in his familial sword with the magic of the Moonblade, and would find no release to Arvanaith1 until the sword had fulfilled its purpose and extinguished itself: an unlikely event, since the sword was to go to the bottom of the sea, where none of Keth'sim's people would find it. These were cold thoughts, but he could not afford to think of the others - egoism, pure and ugly could keep him alive longer than laments and sorrow. Too many elves, he was taught in secret, succumbed to the communal pain when death reigned around them, taking their kin.

So, Keth'sim Dwin'anea did not shudder or relaxed his grip on the sword. Whenever the death would find him, it would find him as prepared as a man could be, and he would do what he promised to his weapon master two hundred years ago: "_I will not go down alone."_

The hourglass at the prow turned upside down, the enchantment still in effect, and wanted to sing the hour… but simple as it was, the sentient artifact tasted the elven blood that sprayed it and remain quiet. The agony was nearly over for the "Kestrel". Keth'sim Dwin'anea stood cornered by three ahuagin, his back to one of the "Kestrel's" tall masts; his sword was making a slow semi-circle in one outstretched arm, while the other held a dirk close, shielding his body. By his feet piled the two last sahuagin he had killed, giving off the smell of a rotting fish. The rest did not rush in, their swords aimed at his throat and gut, but waiting for something; perhaps for him to weaken, to shift from his _posta__2_. "It will be a while," Keth'sim grinned unhappily. Pain of cuts and tiredness of muscles or not, he was trained to maintain the stance for as long as he stayed conscious. He schooled his face to the same stillness that marked his assailants'. Passion he reserved for love, not hatred.

He was staring at the predators, and they – at him, when a chant came from somewhere behind him. One of the attackers shifted his ugly, toothy head a fraction of an inch, as his eyes flickered toward the source of the noise. This momentary lapse of attention was the biggest opening Keth'sim Dwin'anea had since this last wearing down match had begun. The bladesinger thrust his sword forward like a rapier, into his opponent's chest. The flamberge3 blade encountered almost no resistance piercing the sahuagin's hardened hide, glittering scales and fibrous flesh. Dripping dark-red, the heart's blood, the ancient sword of the Elfkings came out and swung up to meet the steel that flashed toward the elf's own gut.

The impaled sahuagin folded, gurgling the last curse or prayer in his rough tongue, spitting it out with blood, and fell over. His companions paid him no heed, striking at Keth'sim Dwin'anea with renewed fury. Two quick parries, a thrust, a sword caught on the swordbreaker – and the trio returned to their watchful stillness, each aware of the others intakes of breath, the trembling in the swordhand or knees, and where their gaze fell. Such was a paradox of any fight, that the bitterest of rivals, the most vicious enemies were alike in their attempt to vanquish each-other.

The elf edged toward the fallen, disengaging his sword, resuming the long guard… and was thrown hard against the mast, as the ship lurched forward, sideways, at incredible speed, being rushed back to the shore by Erevain's voice. The world flickered black, as he hit his side and his head against the iron-cased wood, but the pain was not lethal. Luckily, it was just sharp enough to keep him conscious, if dazed.

Then the same voice, that chanted, now devoid of magical power, screamed at the top of his lungs, and despite his resolve Keth'sim's heart churned and he moaned groggily. Erevain was a good man and had done his duty. The "Kesterl" would run ashore, a monument to those who died, not go down to the bottom of the sea for sahuagin to desecrate. Someone would find the Moonblade… someone. Sucking air into his lungs, and compensating as best he could for the spinning and twining of the world, Keth'sim Dwin'anea leapt at the sahuagin, who lost their footing. The killing blows he had dealt them proved true another lesson of his early days – a fighter on the ground was as good as dead.

Keth'sim did not have time to savor his deliverance, or rest. "Rally to me!" he cried desperately, and "Evereska!" Then his honed instincts told him that _something_ was coming from behind, and the commander spanned about, rotating his blade to divert the blow… so that which was aimed at the back of his head, hit him squarely in the face: a sphere of seawater, by its smell and look, but harder than a rock. The blackness rushed to swallow him, like a rising wave. A toothy scowl of a sahuagin priestess floated on top of it, the only thing that he saw in focus, becoming larger and fainter, turning into the only grayish spot in the dark and then he heard distinctively the quivering sound of his sword striking the deck and he knew that this time he would pass out for good. Another unnecessary blow landed, making the lightening explode in front of his eyes, the last trick of his stubborn sight.

1 _Arvanaith_ is the Elven afterlife in FR mythology

2 _Posta_ or _guard_ is a position assumed by a swordsman.

3 A _flamberge_ is a sword which had a "wavy" blade meant to aid in parrying


	2. Chapter 1 The Deep Pools

Chapter 1. The Deep Pools

The small, placid sloughs in the Everskian Valley never grew comfortably warm, shadowed by the Greycloak Hills from the sun. The turquoise mountain lake, nested high on the slope of the Broken Dagger Mountain, was frigid with the melt water of the Crest Glacier. Yet, in his excitement, pushing deeper and deeper toward the bottom with each stroke of his aching legs, Keth'sim felt hot.

It had been a fool's hope to find the dagger that the Weapon Master Relador had casually tossed in four years ago, to further challenge them after a hard run in full gear to the jewel-like lake. He had said that they should run up the mountain every day until the dagger was retrieved or they have graduated. It was their first year…. The students had known that they would never recover it, and yet every boy trained in the Academy came here at least once a week to jump off the cliff, to swim for the taunting slender blade still unsullied by the calcareous growth, still glistening in the sun. That's apart from the daily trek up and down the slope, though most did not run as far as the shining lake. Keth'sim always ran to the very spot where the Master had stood, however the others chose to interpret the words.

He was short of air now, and the dagger had been out of reach, far below. Biting his lips, Keth'sim had turned over, and the glamorous blue of the water above had filled his eyes. Up and up he went, until he could see the darker spot against the glow, and it had been Diriel. Next week, his friend had said, he would bring along Mazayana…. Well, let it be - let Diriel have the Weapon Master's dagger after Mazayana would have lifted it from the depth by her budding magic for a kiss, but Ket'sim would remember that it had been taken by cheating. The straining lungs burned - perhaps he had miscalculated in his pride and taken by his wish to accomplish the impossible. Master Relador's lessons, despite his air of a simple fighting man, always carried more than one meaning. Had there been in this one a warning against fighting destiny or overestimating one's ability as well as the challenge? The water had thinned above Keth'sim, the shine becoming golden, and finally the swimmer's aching face had broken through the last of it.

He gasped for air, once, twice, both pain and life filling his chest, and stared at Diriel's face. It was wrong. It was too old. It was marred.

"Who?" Keth'sim wanted to ask, but choked instead, looking at the ugly scab snaking across Diriel's brow and cheek. His eye should have been gone from the blow, but it was there, half-healed, a tight spider-net of red veins making mockery of the other, hale one. That was pale green, washed out like all of Diriel's coloring: ivory skin, hair like the white gold. Women thought Diriel a softer man, for him lacking the usual elven brightness and sharpness in appearance. A mistake, that. Keth'sim knew now, that the boy, he had just dreamed waiting in the shadows of the Broken Dagger Mountain, grew into a battle-hardened veteran, tried against the wild beast, and orcs, and drow. And humans, though that was best forgotten.

Diriel sighed, and smothered him with a wet rug: "Hold still, Keth. I'm too tired to wrestle with you right now. Hold still, for the sake of Auranamn, the first Elf!" Water ran down and cut into his lip like a knife. He squirmed and rolled his tongue over his mouth. It was a ruin and tasted of old blood and sea-water. Diriel grinned: "They healed us some, to keep us breathing, but did not concern themselves with the finer details. Perhaps, they were afraid that we'd take maidenheads of all the shark-women in the city if they make us pretty again." Keth'sim found his voice, and managed through the broken lips: "As if missing an eye would have stopped you, El." Diriel's palm squeezed his shoulder, but he did not respond to the quip. He turned away, his face in his palm, with a croak of his own. Keth'sim struggled to sit up, but Diriel's hand pushed him back: "Lie down, or I swear, I will kill you myself." Keth'sim forced his torso up grimly and said against dizziness: "If you must." The eyes of the brightest man he knew shone, when he whipped his head back to take another look at Keth'sim: "You may live." And then he darkened, his cool hand delving a swell in Keth'sim's right side: "For a short while. You are bleeding internally, Keth. I am sorry; there was nothing I could -."

"Report," Keth'sim said to his second in command. Diriel, while not a healer, knew more than any other soldier about wounds, and it was his hands that bandaged and mended while they waited on the holy chants; the time was precious. Diriel wasted some of it on a muttered oath.

"Where is the bloody priestess! One of us dead is enough. Enough."

It was a report in itself. Keth'sim followed Diriel's glance and saw one of the sailors - Ilzeluma? - a prone unmoving shape. He had seen his kin dead of violence or privation, not departed to Arvanaith by choice, before. Soldiers, mostly, and in the Forest of Thethir - civilians. He had seen unarmed women and children slain by humans, and each memory was hard. Each attempt to come to terms with the fact that a mutilated, inanimate object was a talking and laughing sprite just a short time ago was even harder.

This was worse.

Only four, with the exception of Diriel and himself were his soldiers; the four others were hapless passengers he'd met moving about the small world of the ship. He knew each by name. From what he had heard of sahuagin, they were not like humans, whose cruelty was assuaged by the strange, fitful onsets of mercy. _Those children that found and nursed me back to life snatching what food they could from their parents' tables…And Vesina's mother, left a soldier's widow by that pointless war, who had discovered the mischief and only shook her head sadly, wordlessly at me. Mercy, no, we will not find it here._

Keth'sim looked over the survivors, all of them men, all of them beaten, and the cold clarity had descended upon him: if there was a way to come through this alive, he had to find it. Watching him to survey the smooth, windowless walls of a domed chamber and a rounded door with no knob or any other kind of a handle, Diriel said quietly: "We are under water, Keth'sim. I came to once, while they were carrying us through the tunnels. The whole complex is filled with water, but this chamber as far as I could see. To get out, we need their priests to apply a spell on us, and then a miracle to take us to the surface… or a wizard to open a portal to the closest plot of a dry land. We have more chances on a bare rock in the middle of the ocean than here."

Keth'sim looked at Liadon, the only man who stood from the company, and the mage opened his arms to the sides widely, guiltily. His robes were gone. Too tall and thin, in a long under tunic, the gesture made Liadon look rather like a distressed heron.

"They took my spell book, Keth'sim Dwin'anea, and ink, and parchments… even my socks." His pants too, Keth'sim noted. There was something tragic in the way Liadon wiggled his toes. Eldain lifted his head off Saldavian's lap and rolled his eyes. It occurred to Keth'sim that they had heard the wizard's laments already and was grateful for Saldavian's sword-calloused hands stroking his lover's hair, calming him. Eldain had a cutting tongue, with the Whisperbrook's wizard being his favorite target as of late, and this was not a time for japes. Saldavian closed his eyes and leaned heavier against the wall.

"I would have lent you mine, if that could have taken us back to Evereska," Melvanyar, the Whisperbrook's secretary, said crossly to his companion, "but you can't, and we are all going to die."

Batianel stirred and smiled guilelessly: "The Captain won't let this happen." Had he ever been so young as to be able to regain hope the moment that a dying man had opened his eyes, because that man was titled a Captain?

Keth'sim remained silent for one more moment, hoping that someone else would speak up and let him gauge their mood. The white-haired Gil'armoth did not utter a word, but shook his head almost fondly at Batianel, thinking perhaps the same thoughts as Keth'sim, or something kinder; he had three hundred years on Keth'sim, and was going into the Retreat for the sake of seeing the wonders of Evermeet before departing beyond the reach of the Material Plane. When one lives that long one mellows to the naiveté of youth.

"My Lord?" Keth'sim said addressing himself to Lessavel Whisperbrook, the only surviving member of the family that employed him.

Lessavel lifted the eyes circled by dark, painful shadows, and said in a dull voice: "My household now is added to your men, Captain." He chuckled bitterly and corrected himself: "Melvanyar, Liadon and myself are now your men." He was the father of the girl that cried when the attack had just begun, Keth'sim remembered suddenly.

"So am I," added Iverius, the Poet.

"Then I have nine men," Keth'sim said smoothly looking them over. "If I should die, the command is deferred to Diriel, and it falls to him to name his successor."

"Lessavel," Diriel called back almost immediately. Keth'sim nodded. There was something grave and strong about the man. Lessavel acknowledge the honor without undue fuss.

"Oh, could you do something useful, instead of making up the titles?" Melvanyar exploded.

"This is useful," Keth'sim explained patiently. "When we fight we need to know who leads till the very last man standing."

"Fight!" Melvanyar exclaimed, jumping to his feet, with a hint of hysteria in his voice, "Fight!"

Lessavel's sigh told Keth'sim that the Whisperbrook's secretary had fits of this nature quite often.

"They left us all our weapons!" Batianel retorted, as if it was a self-evident course, the only course even. Perhaps, for him, it indeed was. The hot-headed warriors find it unthinkable that someone would not fight while he has a blade and can move. Despite all odds, Keth'sim emphasized with his man. By the sea and stars, he must have taught that attitude to the youngster himself. Yet, almost half of his men -four- he had yet to win to his way of thinking; and Melvanyar had a weak position. Witnessing this unmanly doomsaying, would make others ashamed of hoarding similar feelings. So, Keth'sim decided to let Melvanyar have it out this once. He will break him out of this habit given time. If they had time.

His despair gathering momentum, Melvanyar span about to face Batianel: "Do you know a way for us to grow gills then? Or do you plan to lure the whole city of sahuagin into this room and challenge their King on a duel, honorable-like on the condition of our secure release? The only thing we can do, my brave, is to pass beyond their reach and hope that our spirits can reach Arvanaith from this Abyss."

"Halt." Was all Keth'sim said then, "Someone's coming."

Eldain moaned, and Saldavian's fingers closed in a gesture one made when telling his heart's prayer to Corellon. He prays for the visitor to be a priest, Keth'sim decided, and noted how Diriel glanced quickly his way and frowned. Evidently, his second in command wished for the same thing. While Keth'sim doubted that Corellon had heard the two elves through the miles of the cold water, when the door opened, six sahuagin in ceremonial robes marched into the room.

But Keth'sim's attention wavered from studying the shark-like heads, the rough skin and cruel features of the healers, when he saw a woman that the guards dragged along after the priests.

She was a sea-elf, judging from her pale-green skin and wavy hair the color of Matzikan emeralds. A fierce thing she kicked and struggled against the hands that held her. The rewards for her efforts were the bleeding scrapes made by the sahuagins' abrasive skin on her slender arms. The guards shoved her forward, cursing roughly, and she went on her haunches, breathing loudly. The tangled hair fell forward, veiling her face and the glowing eyes, but Keth'sim could see the angry set of her bloodied mouth.

One of the priests punched her out of the way, and she rolled to the opposite wall, hissing. Keth'sim came to his feet, reaching for his sword, but the harsh hands of a priest jolted a searing bolt of magical energy through his side. The angry bluish glow of the Moonstone in the pommel faded as he sat back heavily, feeling both hale and exhausted.

Sahuagin's healing was not a kind craft.


End file.
